From Tree to Paper

Grown-ups would always say that we should not waste a single piece of paper since the number of trees is already dwindling in our world. The lack of trees has serious consequences, not only to our paper supply, but in the welfare of our nature as well. Although wood pulp is said to be a renewable product, we are still faced with lots of problem since most of us are not taking some of our precious time to plant a tree.

But really, how does a wood pulp become a paper?

The paper that we are using right now is 95% made from trees. Trees with high quantity of cellulose fiber are really farmed for the purpose of paper production. These trees are noted to have cellulose fiber that comprises with 40 to 50% of the total weight of the said tree. Cellulose fibers are the only thing needed for paper making; this is why lignin and other organic materials should be separated in the “pulping” process.

Pulping could be mechanical and it mainly produces paper products that do not require strongly bonded fibers like newsprint, packaging, and others. The other method is chemical processing where heat, pressure and chemicals are used to dissolve the lignin in the wood.

But then again, paper could not be recycled infinitely. The fibers of the paper are getting shorter and shorter each time they are mechanically processed making it possible for an average paper to be reprocessed from three to six times. Other than pulping, production of recycled paper also requires bleaching because of the combination of different dyes and inks that are used in the paper previously.
After bleaching, the wood pulp now undergoes an intricate process of layer building before it is sent to the final roller, which squeezes out the last of the water. Paper is often dried with infrared heat. The output or the recycled paper usually looks a little off-white or gray making it physically different from the processed new paper that is totally bleached.

Although the “paperless society” is now being explored by many technological firms and experts, paper is still far from extinction. We would still need paper in the next centuries or so, making it important for us to be familiar with recycling paper and reuse of raw materials.

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